The nicest thing I can say about it is that it isn't the violent trainwreck it could have been. In fact, I can make a solid argument that it was better than Ghostbusters II. (So can anyone else, given 99.8% of all films are better than Ghostbusters II.) The action sequences are far superior to the original series, but really, there have been nearly 30 years of technological advances since the Statue of Liberty started walking down Broadway, so there is no excuse for that not to pass.

As for the comedy aspect - Leslie Jones and Chris Hemsworth BARELY salvage this from being a complete dumpster fire. Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig are both capable of so much better, but spend the entire film playing the straight man to each other... and whatever the hell Kate MacKinnon was doing for 2 hours was a mile over my head.

The problem so many have with remaking their beloved Ghostbusters as an all-female team is ridiculous - there isn't anything wrong with women appearing in an action-comedy.

HOWEVER - it seems pretty plain that a significant motivatior for making this film was strictly to troll those people who would complain, given the lack of laughs and attempted jokes where to call them "one-note" would be giving them too much credit... there were points in the pre-release advertisement period where I think it is quite reasonable to believe that Sony was trying to actively send a message of "like this movie, or you're sexist." To which I would say to the production team - why bother with all this? The end result of doing so is a bland product with few shining moments that barely strays from the original formula, but maintains just enough cohesion to not be terrible. A solid "meh" should not be your quality control target.

Or maybe it's just as simple a fact as the entire notion of the Ghostbusters is so absurd that Ivan Reitman caught lightning in a bottle and should have quit while ahead in 1984.

Save your money.

5.5/10

Last edited by muscleyarms83; Jul. 17th, '16 at 2:07 am.

"Ya drive on down to Buffalo to watch the Leafs play, and sure, the gas is cheap, but fuck if they don't even have All Dressed chips in that shithole." - Wayne